Ball in general, life on the road… on this blog, either you do or you don't.

The Odyssey

Greetings, friends…

You probably noticed a dearth of appearances of my byline on StLCardinals.com over the last week of the season. I assure you, I was working — lots and lots of stuff for MLB.com’s playoff coverage.

And now, I’m on the road, covering every round of the postseason starting with the Cubs-Dodgers Div.Series. I know some of you can’t bear to spare the first thought for anything involving the Cubs and the playoffs. But for those of you who are interested, I’ll be trying to blog pretty regularly from the playoffs, plus of course some college football goodness (it IS Miami week, after all).

So anyway. I’m alive and kicking. Let’s talk ball. Happy October!

-M.

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7 Comments

I wish Jimmy Ballgame and the Cubs the best of luck. They’ve waited long enough. I hope it comes down to the Cubs and Rays…..
M, I heard some commentators debating whether the USC loss or Florida loss was the bigger upset? What’s your opinion and why?

I keep going back and forth on that. Thursday night, on the road, in the conference, as a favorite is ALWAYS a tough task. I surely know that as an FSU fan. It’s just such a bigger deal for the underdog team, the team that’s getting its one shot at exposure. Besides, UF was at home, and SC is starting to develop a reputation for failing to show up once in a while.

On the other hand, Mississippi will probably turn out to be a better team than Oregon St this year (IMO — I think Houston Nutt is a terrific coach, you may disagree Shaun), and they’ve given UF fits in the same way OSU has given SC fits in recent years.

In the end I think SC is still a bit more surprising, not because of the result but because of HOW it happened. Oregon St just hit them in the mouth all night, ran right up the gut at them.

That’s spot on analysis, IMO. I look at like this. 1) Because USC is in such a notoriously weak conference AND they don’t play a conference title game, they pretty much HAVE TO go undefeated for even a shot at the BCS Title game. For Florida, they can lose as many as two and if circumstances provide, they still have a shot…like LSU did it last year. And B). I think we’ll have to wait til the end of the year and see which loss hurt which team more.
As for Houston Nutt, I actually agree that he is an excellent coach. He is also an excellent motivator, as I have said before. His problem at Arkansas is that he was stuck in the past. He had Frank Broyles’ full support in sticking with his old philosophy, and deservedly so, but people here were sick of watching a one-dimensional team play just above mediocre. The Hogs consistantly had top notch tailbacks and lineman under Nutt, but settled for second to third rate everything else (on offense). Arkansas was going to the Liberty Bowl and the Music City Bowl and the Las Vegas Bowl, while LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, and other SEC teams were competing for BCS Bowls consistantly. Bottom line is that after the Mitch Mustain, Damian Williams debacle, Arkansas fans had had enough with Houston Nutt AND Frank Broyles…it was time for change. We may have a couple bad seasons under Bobby P. and Jeff Long, but they will revive the program, I believe, and bring it to heights not seen here since the 1960s.

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